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I agree- this should be a sticky. I have not seen such a nice, clear and well put together reason for NOT using salt yet. As I have all salt-sensitive fish anyway, I do not use salt, but this is nevertheless GREAT, scientific information and I learned a FEW new things today!

I'm currently treating for Ich using the salt method and it seems to be doing well. Just when I was wondering if I should maintain the salt level on my tank even after the Ich had abated I come across this GREAT post and understand that the best thing I can do is to revert to no salt at all when I finish treatment! Thanks A LOT for your time and effort in writing this up!

I did put salt in all of my tanks since I started keeping fish until not too long ago. Everything I ever looked up was the good things about adding salt to the tank. I never thought about googling "don't add salt" Etc. Anyway, not too long ago I did stumble upon articles suggesting not to use salt. And it kept interfering with species I wanted to keep such as tetras. And I started doing water changes to the tanks and not adding salt. Especially when I read that most of the "benefits" it causes can be reached by adding stress coat or a similar slime coat enhancement dechlorinator to the tank without the stress of salinity. So you have validated that decision for me. Though sadly, my LFS uses it in every tank they have.

Good read!

We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know.

aquarium salt

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does aquarium salt add oxygen to the water and help the fish breath and i was also told that it helps clear there there breating passages a person at petsmart told me this is this a sales pitch or is it true?

Sorry to tell you mightymike, but it is a sales pitch and a very bad one at that. Salt actually does the opposite of what they told you, it lowers the oxygen content of water. Also, I'm not sure what they are even referring to by "breathing passages." Fish absorb the oxygen from the water through their gills directly into their bloodstream, salt can actually restrict that flow due to the excess slime coat caused by the salt.